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| Al-Awda New York, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition | |
REPORT
FROM IRAQ AND PALESTINE by Samia Halaby
Jan 28, 2001
On January 12, Friday, 2001, I accompanied the Ramsey Clark Delegation to Iraq called the Iraq Sanctions Challenge. After five days in Iraq we spent two days in Amman visiting refugee camps and talking to Palestinian activists. Immediately afterwards two delegates, myself and Dan Winters, entered Palestine/Israel carrying badly needed antibiotics for Palestinian clinics and hospitals.
For me to visually and personally experience the effect on Iraq of the US led war and sanctions is to have intellectual knowledge transformed into painful first hand experience. We only saw a small part of the deliberately imposed tragedy. The following observations are clearly limited. A complete list of the effects of the war and sanctions is not here intended.
The
strongest first impression is the willful destruction that these
sanctions impose and its similarity to the destruction imposed on
Palestine, Lebanon, and parts of x-Yugoslavia. In ways the
details of which I do not fully comprehend but whose results is
obvious, this destruction is economically beneficial to
Imperialist financial and
economic life. It is like a monster which has digested the whole
world and is now eating parts of its own body in order to
survive.
Baghdad is a modern city with wide boulevards and many tall well designed buildings. Driving in from the modern and beautiful airport is an esperience which is on the surface normal but unsettling. Why is the modern large aiport empty? Where are the residents of a seemingly afluent metropolis? Why are the streets full of people who are improvrished and poorly fed?
During one
hospital visit, a doctor explained that there is a shortage of
textbooks for medical instructions and that they have to copy
books that are smuggled in by friends so that students can study.
As I listened I realized that there is a reduction in the value
of work both physical labor and intellectual work. The sanctions
include sanctions on intellectual property and research
information. Text books have got to be smuggled in and copied in
order for students to have the information necessary for their
education. This is a valuable waste of time for highly skilled
workers.
In discussion with Librarian, Tala N. Al zuhairy, secretary general of the Central Library of Moustansiriyah University, Baghdad Dar alsalam, Iraq, tel. 416-7327, I was told that there is a special need for the following research extracts on CD: UMI/CD, ENIC/CD, and Chemical Abstract on CD dating from after 1996. This is in addition to the painful loss of a large number of highly educated middle class which left Iraq just after the war. The loss of this group, educated at the cost of the Iraqi government, is a serious part of the economic benefit which the US gained as a result of the war.
The reduction in the value of labor is like a continued robbery of a nation of 22 million citizens. It is aided by the manipulation of international monetary exchange. The Iraqi currency is extremely devalued. Everything they sell is cheaper than its real value and everything they purchase is much more expensive in the labor with which they pay for it. And, furthermore, they are not allowed to purchase what they need. They are denied the benefits of the division of labor and international production pushing them to more primitive stages of production. It is hard to realize how quickly things deteriorate. For example, pumping equipment has broken down and cannot be replaced which has meant that some of Baghdad's buildings are slowly sinking into the marshy lands of the Tigris.
The social motion toward progress and economic development is an invigorating and joyful process. But economic regression is painful tearing at society and killing many of its members, members who had been born and whose lives were improved by progress. The UN committee 661 does not allow Iraq to purchase the chlorine necessary for water purification and so many die due to unpurified water. Gastroenteritis is deadly in Iraq and curable by antibiotics. Antibiotics are scare due to the sanctions. The antibiotics produced in Iraq are not sufficient as their machinery is deteriorating and they can't replace broken parts.
The UN oil
for food program has given Iraq only 25% of the value of sales
back in food. Much more of the money is given to the UN to
administer the program than arrives in Iraq to feed people. But
most of the money lies in American banks benefiting those same
banks as funds conveniently await the approval of contracts by
the UN 661 committee. If anything has revealed the true face of
the UN it is the complete inhumanity and brutality of the
sanction against Iraq. (The total of money so far paid for IRAQI
OIL FOR FOOD is now 40 billion. Only 9.6 billion has reached Iraq
in food. 13.6 billion is kept by the UN for administering the
program. And, the remainder
remains frozen awaiting UN 661 committee approval.)
Malnutrition is visible in a generation of children and teenagers who are small in size. They contrast dramatically to their parent generation who is large and bony. Too many children whom I questioned turned out to be between 3 to 5 years older than I expected. Based on their size, I had expected them to be younger. This is due to to malnutrition. Visiting schools brought us in direct contact with children as did visiting the markets where many children scrounge a living for themselves and their families. The question they all asked when told that we were part of the Ramsey Clark delegation was "Why is the US doing this to us?"
In Iraq we visited hospitals and we saw children with Leukemia, children who will soon die due to lack of medication. Iraqis suffer Leukemia and other cancers due to the depleted uranium and other radioactive material used in the war.
During our two days in Amman we were able to visit the Wihdat refugee camp and admire the many accomplishment of their social center and their many social organizations. Some of these were conducted by UNRWA while others were strictly due to local initiative. In Amman we visited the Jordan Hospital in Amman where 10 Iraqi doctors each month were volunteering on rotation to take care of young Palestinians wounded by Israeli bullets in the Intifada? The wing is paid for completely by Iraqi donation. Outside the ward we talked to family members who has accompanied the wounded from Palestine or who had come to visit them from their homes in Jordan. They were all intense and angry and had loads of grievances to share with us. But, the most compelling narrative was given to me by the hospital director regarding the physical and emotional agonies of a little boy who had been plunged into the middle of a column of burning tires by Israeli settlers. At regular intervals the boy would begin moaning and calling as though still in the horror of the experience itself.
Visiting Palestine right after was a continuation of the experience of destruction wrought by the monster of imperialism trying to survive when it has long been time for it to be replaced.
Dan Winters and myself carried two suitcases full of antibiotics destined for Palestinian hospitals and clinics. We were stopped at the Allenby bridge and the antibiotics that we were carrying were all confiscated in spite of our pleas of charitable intention. We were carrying approximate $18,000.00 worth of Amoxycilline and Cephalosporines. We had between us 91 canisters each containing 500 pills. We calculate that there was enough for 2275 courses of 20 pills each. Many of those who badly need this medication are children. Pneumonia is now especially widespread in Palestine and our medication might have saved many victims. Other patients with infections, gastroenteritis, and wounds would have also benefited from this medication. All of the medicine was confiscated with very little hope of retrieval.
I asked to take it back to refugee camp clinics in Jordan and offered to return immediately with it but they completely refused. At one point they insisted that I talk Arabic with them and they became insulting and a yelling match ensued. At one point they declared our actions criminal and threatenned punishment. Dan wanted to do a sitdown strike till the following day. We eventually demanded to see the head of customs who took us to his office. We approached him in politeness making all our demands and declarations but to no avail. In a moment of honesty he informed us that there was no real chance of getting the medicine back.
A few days later on the way out, Wednesday, January 26, 2001, I tried to retrieve these antibiotics and again they refused. I told them that they were preventing children and suffering adults the benefit of the drugs but they refused to even accept their guilt. I asked them if they were not ashamed of themselves. They said that I broke the law and could be arrested. I told them to stop their threats and feel some shame but they only threatened more and yelled. A few hours later, Dan Winters, passing the bridge on his way back to Amman requested to pick up the antibiotics but he was told that I had come through and been extremely rude and that as a result they had given me the antibiotics. It was of course a lie. They simply lied to Dan, thinking him a 'Westerner' whom they had to keep blind to their real nature. As for me, a Palestinian, threats of jail was their response.
What we saw in Palestine was more of the effects of destruction. In Beit Sahour and Beit Jala we visited residential neighborhoods which had been attacked by helicopter gun-ships or by armored vehicles. We suspect that some of the homes in Beit Jala may have been hit with depleted uranium. This needs to be investigated so that the population is informed as to what must be done to protect themselves and to demand clean-up. This information also impacts on the residents of the settlement. In Beit Jala facing Gilo settlement, as I stood by a Palestinian house which was destroyed by helicopter gun-ships, I put my finger in my mouth and held it up to the wind. The wind blew towards Gilo. So if there is Depleted Uranium then the dust is flying to Gilo to give the guilty perpetrators a dose of well deserved cancer.
In Beit Sahour we visited the YMCA which runs a program for the disabled. We toured the Shepherd's field and grounds and were shown were the Israelis had bombed and damaged both the office building the rehabilitation center. Rebuilding goes on and the center will soon reopen to serve those handicapped during the first Intifada and the new one. We also visited the home of Dr. Johny Matarweh who is a general practitioner in Beit Sahour. Across the valley there is an Israeli military camp. On October 29, 2000, armored vehicle departed the camp and came within 20 meters of his home and fired directly at his home. A few days later they repeated the operation. His home was completely destroyed and needs rebuilding. The home was a multiple dwelling occupied by 6 brothers and their wives and 22 children. As we looked at the house from the outside we noted that many more houses had suffered the same type of attack. Dr. Matarweh works a 14 hour day and barely supports his family. Rebuilding will be difficult. We entered his daughters room and photographed the rubble which included a piano and a computer as well as a Christmas tree with bullets beneath it. Standing in one spot, I could pivot and photograph the Israeli military encampment through the large gash in the cement and stone wall. I could see the mud path made by the armored vehicle as it approached down one hill and up the next to within 20 meters of the house to deliberately fire at the bedrooms of Palestinian children at home.
Palestinians are under severe economic attack. All their modes of livelihood are threatened and under actions of destruction. Agricultural land is being wiped flat by bulldozers. Homes are being constantly demolished. All imports and exports in and out of town and villages are strictly controlled and sevely limited. Food is scarce and limited. Palestinian are under town arrest. They cannot drive between towns and if they do they are at rist of being shot to death. Many are still under house arrest. Workers cannot go to work. They are running out of money and food. Too many of Palestinian services are run by NGO's which rely on international charity. Israel is deliberate destroying the economy while it continues to confiscate more and more land. Yet Palestinians are defiant and determined to resist just as Iraqi are also.
Long live Palestinian and Iraqi resistance and solidarity.
Samia A. Halaby
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